


we're not here to take part (we're here to take over)

by stevenstamkos



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: 2017 World Juniors, Friends With Benefits, Getting Together, M/M, Quebec Major Junior Hockey League
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-19
Updated: 2017-05-19
Packaged: 2018-11-02 16:41:55
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 16,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10948548
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stevenstamkos/pseuds/stevenstamkos
Summary: Everyone calls him PL. Only Julien really calls him Luc.Luc is starting to realize that there are a lot of things that fall into the “only Julien” category.





	we're not here to take part (we're here to take over)

**Author's Note:**

> First, all my love to Ava, for being the world's BIGGEST ENABLER. This fic went from a 500 word joke scene to a legit 16k+ monster because of you. I'd also like to thank Jessica for being a lovely, last-minute beta, and Raven, for reading this over and giving me feedback and in general holding my hands as I cried about this every night for the past two weeks. And Maddie, for screaming at me about the Q and Luc and the Eagles until I buckled and admitted that I'm a diehard Q stan now.
> 
> This takes place partly during WJCs and partly during the President's Cup Finals. For a timeline, check the end.
> 
> Very barely implied Philippe Myers/Jérémy Lauzon, Michael McLeod/Nathan Bastian, and Thomas Chabot/Mat Barzal.
> 
> Oh yes, and I borrowed the title from [Pierre-Luc Dubois's Instagram](https://www.instagram.com/p/BBIWt_AM9UH/) because that boy's captions are _iconic_

Pierre-Luc likes Julien perhaps more than he’s willing to admit to anyone. Julien is calm and funny and has a great smile, and he’s good at kissing and at hockey, both of which he did a lot of with Luc during World Juniors.

Julien scores twice in Game 1. Luc really shouldn’t be surprised, but he is annoyed.

 

It starts like

 

“So are you like, a thing with Gauth?” Mikey McLeod asks.

They are sprawled out on a couch with Stromer and Raddysh and Julien, and Stromer’s head is pillowed on Clouder’s shoulder. A few of the Dub guys are playing cards on the floor. Luc isn’t sure if Dylan is like, passed out or dead or just resting with his eyes closed.

He stares at Mikey, keeping his face blank and cool.

Mikey stares back.

“Just wondering, cause you two have been hanging out a lot.”

It’s true, they have, ever since Hockey Canada selection camp a week ago. Julien Gauthier is kind and good and a lot like a marshmallow, if a marshmallow were 6’4” and 225 lbs and came from a family of bodybuilders. Luc isn’t a small guy, far from it, but Julien is kind of huge.

“We’re whatever,” he says neutrally.

“Whatever,” Mikey echos. He sounds doubtful.

Luc rolls his eyes.

Mikey has been sort of on edge around him ever since the Combine, and then he caught Luc and Nater Bastian riding the bison statue in Buffalo during the draft—which was, by the way, Nate's idea. Mikey saw the pictures of them hanging out and Luc’s Instagram comments, and, well.

It wasn’t like that though. Like, Luc and Nate only kissed twice, and it was strictly bros. Mikey didn’t really see it that way though, cause he was kind of pissed at both of them for a bit. He made up with Bas cause Mississauga boys, but he’s still been pretty dodgy around Luc. Fucking territorial, that guy.

“Dude, Clouder, me and Jules are cool. It’s cool.”

He pats Julien’s shoulder, and Julien stirs awake in his lap, muttering a confused and sleep-roughened “What?”

“Nothing,” Luc says, running gentle fingers through Julien’s hair until he closes his eyes again.

“Right,” Mikey says.

Luc hums softly in reply, looking down at Julien’s head, a warm weight on his thighs, and he lets himself soak in the sounds of his new team. Team Canada version 2017 and better than ever.

 

No, actually it starts like

 

Ice and sweat and the crowd in Chicoutimi, the Russian players a blur of white. One of them checks him lightly into the boards as they chase the puck behind the net. Luc gets there first though, executes a bit of give-and-go with Alexandre Fortin, and then centers it to Julien coming hard down the slot. Julien is, as usual, right where he’s supposed to be. What a beautiful one-timer.

1-0 Team QMJHL.

Three minutes later on the power play, Julien across the ice to Luc to Nicolas Roy in the crease, and Nico taps it home. 2-0.

God, they are so fucking good together.

Julien gets a second goal with a minute to go in the third, muscles his way around a Russian defender to make it 4-0 for the Q, and Luc feels Canadian pride hit him like a punch to the solar plexus. The C feels light as air on his chest. It feels good, to clinch the Canada-Russia series for the first time in back-to-back years. They still have one more game to play in Baie-Comeau, but the series is theirs.

As the clock runs out, Luc taps Julien’s shin with his stick, and Julien cups the back of his head, leans in to bump helmets with him.

And then

Julien leaning back on the couch in the weight room with Luc in his lap, fingers tangled in the back of Luc’s shirt, mouth on Luc’s neck, fucking everywhere that Luc can see or hear or feel. That’s the thing about Julien. He takes up a lot of space.

“Chabby’s gonna feel left out,” Luc whispers, and Julien lets out a low sound of amusement before returning to his jaw.

Julien is not really trying with Movember, but Luc is, and he thinks he’s got a pretty good beard going right now. He looks hot. Julien probably thinks so too, because he is all over Luc’s beard like it’s Christmas. Fuck yeah, baby, that’s how you do it.

Things are just getting interesting when Chabby walks in with Nico and demands, “Are you guys fucking on the couch?”

“Yes,” Luc says, but he does slip his hand out from underneath Julien’s shirt.

Julien laughs, hands still warm and huge on Luc’s back. “We’re fucking _on_ the couch but we’re not like, _fucking_ on the couch, man. We were about to though, wanna join? Captain and alternates only.”

“Oh, that’s nice,” Nico says drily. “Better go give this A to someone else then.”

Chabby catches him by the back of his shirt before he can leave. “Wait no, we gotta have our team captains meeting. They’re gonna be sending cameras in here in like 10 minutes for postgame stuff. Duber, get your ass off of Gauth’s lap.”

“My ass is great and Jules loves it,” Luc tells him, unnecessarily.

Julien gives it a little squeeze of agreement.

 

Wait no, before that there was

 

“Haircut. Nice.” Luc lets himself take a long look.

Julien runs a hand through his hair, like he’s still getting used to it. Luc hasn’t seen him too much since the Top Prospects Game, just once when the Screaming Eagles faced the Foreurs in February, and even then it had only been on the ice. Julien still had his flow back then, which was a decent look, if a little outside of Luc’s usual tastes. Still, can’t knock the flow. It had been fucking great for grabbing during sex.

“Cleaning myself up for the draft, you know?” Julien says. He touches his hair again, just for a moment.

He looks really good. Luc could get on board with this like, right now, if they didn’t have to do Combine stuff. Later though.

The Combine is good, exhausting and full of the same questions from 30 different GMs, but it’s good. He and Julien see each other around the room, moving between exercises, and they don’t do more than nod at each other. And around town, Luc spends most of his free time with Nate Bastian. Nate is fucking awesome, like chill enough to resonate with Luc’s chill. They go to a Bisons game and go for walks and watch movies and cuddle and shit. It’s great.

Except for the part where Mikey looks like he’s thinking about murdering Luc and hiding his body around various parts of Buffalo. That part’s not so peachy.

But if Luc were at all worried about Mikey, those thoughts wash away the minute he gets back to the hotel and sneaks into Julien’s room. They’re too tired to have sex most nights, but they still find the time and energy to lazily make out until Julien’s roommate gets back and almost catches them. Making out with Julien is the second-best part of the Combine, after the bit where he’s getting one step closer to the NHL.

And yeah, he can definitely still pull the hair.

When he gets back to Rimouski, he posts a picture of himself at the Combine and captions it with a throwback to his great time with Nater.

He doesn't mention Julien at all. That part is only for himself.

 

And then before _that—_

Well the truth is, Luc doesn’t know when it started.

 

* * *

 

So this time around, it begins at World Juniors selection camp, and then it just keeps happening.

Luc was cut at camp last year, but Julien wasn’t, and that team came home from Helsinki with sixth and the weight of a country’s disappointment. Now they’re at home for the tournament, playing in the Bell Centre and the Air Canada Center which is fucking wild, and there’s only one thing on everyone’s minds: gold.

They’re going to fucking win or die trying.

“You’re so dramatic, PL,” Carter Hart says, “but like, same.”

 

Luc arrives in Boisbriand on Saturday with the other Q boys, meets up with some guys from the O and the Dub that he's played with before. There are a few new faces, but most of these guys he knows from the Ivan Hlinka or other tournaments. Tyson Jost hugs him tight and ruffles his perfectly styled hair, and Luc lets him because it's Josty.

When he untangles himself and looks around, Julien is greeting Thomas Chabot and Mathieu Joseph, who flew in together from Saint John. Julien stares at Luc over Jozy’s head, and Luc can feel his eyes lingering: on his face, quick sweep down his arms, settling heavy on his thighs before darting back up to his face. It’s a knowing sort of look, edging on hungry, and Luc preens a bit but like, subtly. He knows he looks good, but it's always nice to be reminded.

“Hey, Luc,” Julien says before wrapping his arms around Luc’s neck. Julien gives great hugs.

“You ready to do this?” Luc asks.

“Gold, baby,” Julien says, and yeah. Gold, baby.

The rink in Boisbriand belongs to the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada, but Hockey Canada has taken over it for selection camp. Luc steps onto the ice and breathes it in. Okay, Team Canada is a go.

That first practice feels hopeful, new and exciting and a little weird. Luc is used to playing against Chabby and Jozy, used to board battles with Nico Roy, used to crushing Philippe Myers and Jérémy Lauzon into the boards during Huskies games. And he’s used to playing against Julien, a powerful figure in green during games against Val-d’Or, now gently hip-checking him in their red practice jerseys.

Coach Ducharme plays them hard and unforgiving, like they have something to prove.

They _do_ have something to prove. A country to avenge.

Luc wants it, more than anything right now.

Coming off the ice, it feels like they can do it. They’re a good group of guys, the best in Canada, and they can be the best in the world. Luc feels it in his bones; after the cuts, after selection camp, this is the team to do it.

For camp, Luc is sharing a room with Connor Ingram. Ingram is really fucking weird and Luc isn’t sure how much of that is the goalie in him and how much of it is the Dub just being a weird place in general. Or maybe it’s Ingram himself. But he’s also really funny and doesn't give a fuck about Luc taking over their room, so they’re alright.

After practice, Luc drags Julien into his room to watch a movie, though they don’t actually get to the movie part. Like, they vote on the movie and then Julien sticks his tongue down Luc’s throat which, cool. Luc can get on board with that.

Luc is a pretty flexible guy. In more ways than one.

They make out for what feels like _hours_. Making out with Julien is fun, and it’s a good way to de-stress, with the tournament and making the roster on everyone’s minds. All that talk about being special and atoning for last year's mistakes was heavy stuff. Serious and true, but also really fucking nerve-wracking. Luc has to maintain his chill somehow.

Plus, Julien’s French is as good as his tongue, and Luc likes the way he sounds when he speaks it in bed, low and sweet and a little hoarse.

“Ingram is gonna be back soon,” Julien says, one hand shoved down the back of Luc’s pants, and Luc doesn't want to think about Connor Ingram when he's trying to score, thanks.

“Nah, he told me he was gonna go find Hartsy and to take my time,” Luc says into Julien’s neck.

“What? When’d he say that?”

“Before you came over. He also said to have fun and to tell you that he said hi, and he threw a condom at me.” Julien pulls away a bit, looking confused and a little freaked out, and Luc drags him back. “He's a goalie, man. Goalies just _know_ things. Come back here and take my pants off.”

 

They practice again the next day, odd-man rushes and backchecking and scrimmages. Luc feels good and he looks good on the ice. It’s a confidence boost, feeling like he’s back in the game after his kind of shitty season in Cape Breton so far.

(Luc doesn’t think about his season in Cape Breton. He’s read enough to know what people are saying. That he’s a disappointment, that the Blue Jackets made a mistake by drafting him third overall last summer. That his ongoing slump means that he won’t live up to expectations. He tries not to let it get to him, but, well. It’s not like they’re all that wrong. His point production and the Eagles’ record this season leave a bitter taste in his mouth.)

Coach Ducharme has them watch tape after getting off the ice, and then Luc checks the score of the Eagles game because you know, they’re still his boys at home. It’s 3-2 Cape Breton over Victoriaville, which is fucking nice.

And then he gets the news about the trade.

The Eagles group chat is fucking exploding, and Luc goes through a few messages—mostly sad, wishing him luck at the World Juniors and in Blainville, telling him they’ll miss him—before he has to put it on mute for like, the night, or maybe forever.

Fuck. Blainville-Boisbriand. God, he’s been traded to the fucking _Armada_.

 

“So, the Armada, eh?” Julien says later that night.

Luc buries his face in Julien’s shoulder and tries not to think about it. The Armada are good. Like, really good, like tied for first with the Sea Dogs kind of good which is like, holy shit. He should be thrilled that he’s going to play with them since, you know, Cup contenders. Doesn’t explain the pit in his stomach though.

“The Armada are good,” he reminds Julien, though it’s mostly a reminder for himself.

Julien hums, trailing gentle fingers up Luc’s back. They’re actually watching a movie tonight, curled around each other on Julien’s bed as _The Hangover_ plays on the TV. Luc knows that Julien chose it to cheer him up, because Julien is literally the best kind of guy, but he’s finding it a bit hard to focus.

“The Armada are fucking great,” he says, again. Yeah, keep telling himself that.

Taylor Raddysh shushes them from the floor, but he does reach up from his tangle of bodies to gently pat Luc on the ankle. Luc thinks it’s supposed to be a comforting sort of pat, like _sorry you got traded bud, now shut the fuck up please we’re trying to watch here_.

Julien lowers his voice. “At least you’re like, already in Boisbriand, right? Get a head start on getting used to your new home.”

“Yeah. And it’s a nicer place to live than Cape Breton, I guess. I just—I knew it was coming, you know? Wasn’t sure where I’d be going, but after Svech and the rest of our core left in April, we haven’t been the same team as we were last season. Still, fucking sucks though.”

“You wanna talk about it?”

Like Luc said, best kind of guy.

Onscreen, Bradley Cooper starts screaming over a baby. Luc can sort of relate, in that he’d like to scream a little too.

“I’m good,” he says instead.

There are other things to worry about right now, like Canada and gold.

 

(They ask him about it the next day, the Blainville reporters. He’s fresh off the ice—off the Armada’s ice, the ice that he’ll call home for the rest of the season, and he puts on a smile and says some nice things about Blainville and tries not to think about Cape Breton.)

 

Luc makes the team this year. He looks around at the team after the final cuts, smaller and sleeker and faster and better than ever. Yeah, this is the team to do it.

They move to Mont-Tremblant for more practices and team bonding, three days of getting to know these boys who are usually the enemy and are now Luc’s brothers for the next three weeks, and then it’s off to Montreal for the prelims.

They storm through the pre-tournament, fucking destroying Finland and Czech Republic 5-0. They are fucking flying, boys.

Julien kisses him hard after each win, a messy press of mouths in the weight room or in a dark corner at the back of the team bus, and there’s always an invitation in his eyes. _Do you wanna, tonight?_ Luc says yes every time because fucking _duh_.

In the final pre-tournament game, Switzerland puts up a fight after Canada goes up 3-0 in the first, two fast ones from Nico Hischier to make it a one-goal game.

“Who the fuck,” Kale Clague says, leaning hard over the boards to get a good look at Hischier as he fistbumps the Swiss bench.

“No fucking clue,” Anthony Cirelli says. “Must be a new import or something. I think he plays for Halifax?”

As one, half a dozen heads turn on the bench toward Luc. There are like, six other Q boys they can ask, but Luc plays for Cape Breton, or at least _played_ for Cape Breton, and the Eagles play the Moose like a billion times a season. Battle of Nova Scotia and all that. Luc loves divisional rivalries.

He chews on his mouthguard, trying to remember Hischier. The Mooseheads are kind of a mess this year (again), but he does remember the guy. Small. Swiss. On the top line. Good zone entries. Definitely one of the best players on his team.

“He’s good,” he says, trying to remember how they prepared for him. “Fast. Sneaky hands.”

“Yeah, we see that,” Stromer says, sounding strained.

The Swiss tie it up, and it takes overtime to win, but Canada wins it. Nico Roy gets the puck past the Swiss goaltender, and then they’re streaming onto the ice to congratulate Hartsy.

“Beauty,” Luc tells Nico, kissing his helmet.

God, what a fucking game.

It’s a rude awakening, or as Coach Ducharme puts it, a free lesson. They need to wake the fuck up. No one’s here to play games. They have the next few days off for the holidays, and then the preliminary round is in three days, their opener against Russia on Boxing Day. They have to be serious about this, about wanting to win.

 

Christmas Eve is super nice, and Luc spends most of it blitzed out of his fucking mind. He makes out with Julien in the tiny bathroom of some bar in downtown Toronto though, which is pretty normal as far as nights go. Julien tastes like whatever shitty beer Dante Fabbro got and the spearmint gum he was chewing before he started on the beer. It tastes fucking disgusting together.

He stops kissing Julien long enough to tell him that. “Your mouth tastes like ass.”

“Shut the fuck,” Julien mumbles back, busy working on yet another hickey. Not the best response; Luc should take points off for lack of creativity.

Julien’s tongue though? Definitely deserving those creativity points. And his hands, _god_. Merry fucking Christmas.

They stumble apart when Phil comes in looking for them with Jérémy, because someone apparently realized they were gone and was afraid they were drowning in a toilet somewhere. Phil and Jérémy are fucking great, like always hanging out with each other but great. It’s probably the Husky thing. The Huskies as a whole are pretty chill. Must be something about Rouyn-Noranda.

Luc hops off the sink and gets busy pretending that his mouth wasn’t just surgically attached to Julien’s for the past thirty minutes, and Phil and Jérémy pretend that Luc is fooling them. Phil laughs what is probably like the loudest laugh ever though when he sees them, which attracts Mitchell Stephens, who has no sense of subtlety at all.

Mitchell comes into the bathroom and eyes the four of them, standing around in front of the sinks. It’s getting to be a crowd. “Were you guys hooking up in here?” he demands, as if he’s insulted that he wasn’t invited.

“Q foursome. Can you speak French?” Luc asks, switching easily to English.

“Gross,” Jérémy says and Phil laughs again, but Luc ignores them.

“I know the good swears,” Mitchell offers, which, figures. Everyone knows the good swears. Québécois was like, invented for swearing.

“Maybe next time,” he says, and he claps Mitchell on the shoulder before shoving his way out of the bathroom. He doesn’t look at Julien as he goes.

Look, it’s not like he’s embarrassed about hooking up with Julien. Probably half of Team Canada knows about them already. There’s just this thing about Julien, the way he looks at Luc when they’re together, that—it’s too much. Luc feels overwhelmed sometimes, and Julien was looking at him like that earlier, when they were alone, and Luc felt like someone shot him up with the good painkillers, high as a goddamn kite. And then Phil and Jérémy came in and the bubble had burst.

Luc doesn’t get it, and he doesn’t want to think about it.

Chabby is hanging out with Mat Barzal like he usually is these days, ever since they roomed together in Mont-Tremblant, but he takes one look at Luc’s red mouth and messed-up hair and shoves a glass in his hands.

“Just drink,” he says in Luc’s ear. Chabby is always full of awesome ideas. Luc puts an arm around him and drinks.

 

Christmas Day is a lot more sobering. Luc wakes up with a hangover and the last dregs of a nightmare about Russia kicking their asses out of the tournament tomorrow, which isn’t even _possible_ in the prelims. It’s not a good morning.

“Did you die or something last night?” Mikey asks at breakfast, which is fucking rude considering how Mikey is sitting next to Dylan, who looks like a raccoon that crawled out of a dumpster in search of food.

“Fuck right off,” Luc says calmly. He does check himself out in the window though, just in case. He looks fine. Under-eye bags a little strong cause of the alcohol coma, but fine.

Julien slaps his back on his way to the muffins. “You look great, don’t worry,” he tells Luc without even looking at him.

Luc gives his reflection one more up-and-down before agreeing.

“Yeah, you look beautiful, baby,” Barz says, blowing a loud kiss at him, and Luc lets go of his food long enough to flip him off.

 

The thought of the tournament starting tomorrow only gets stronger as the day goes on, and by the time Luc is getting ready for bed, he’s trying not to psych himself out with excitement and nerves. Not on the outside though. On the outside, Luc is completely chill, like fresh ice after the zamboni is done but before the game starts.

Julien looks pretty on edge which could be a problem tomorrow, so Luc offers to blow him.

“Uh,” Julien says, which isn’t really an answer. “Hold on—wait, come back here.” He drags Luc back into his lap when Luc tries to get off the bed, and okay, at least one part of him is interested. “I got you something.”

 _For Christmas_ , he doesn’t say, but Luc hears it anyway.

The something is a chain, shiny and plain and a lot like the one that Julien wears. It comes in a black satin pouch, which is nice because if Julien got out a box of any kind, Luc thinks he would’ve passed out.

“Did you buy me jewelry? Jesus Christ.”

He touches the chain with the tips of his fingers, cool and silver in Julien’s palm. It’s pretty, something he might’ve picked out himself.

“You don’t wear one, so I thought I’d get it for you.” Julien shrugs, like it’s nothing.

No, Luc doesn’t wear a chain. He’d thought about it before, knows that a lot of guys do, but it never seemed like an urgent thing. He looks up, catching Julien’s eye.

“Thanks,” he says softly. “Um, I didn’t get anything for you.”

“I know. I wasn’t expecting—It’s fine.”

Julien watches carefully as Luc picks up the chain, unclasps the back and stares at it, admiring each silver link. It catches the light, blindingly bright for a second.

“Do you need me to…?”

“Oh.” Luc pauses, caught off guard. He was going to put it away, take it back to his room later, maybe put it on in a while, but if Julien wants him to put it on now—“Nah, I got it, man.” He hops off the bed and heads into the little bathroom, where he puts it on in front of the mirror. It takes a few tries, but he gets it.

Julien stares at him when he walks out, that look in his eyes again, and then he takes his Val-d’Or snapback off for a second to run his hand through his hair before putting it back on.

Luc strips off his shirt and drops it on the floor, and god, Julien’s eyes are like, fucking weights or something, because he can feel them on his collarbone, all hot and heavy. He knee-walks up the bed and climbs back into Julien’s lap, puts his arms around his neck and plays with the bill of his snapback.

“It looks good on you,” Julien says quietly, and he touches the chain for a second, warming metal against Luc’s chest.

“Thanks,” Luc says again. “So did you want Christmas head or…?”

Julien laughs, startled and happy-sounding, kisses him and shoves him down the bed, and Luc steals his snapback and puts it on backwards before kneeling between his legs. As he pulls Julien’s shorts down, he feels a hand settle on the back of his neck, playing with the chain, holding him grounded.

 

They beat Russia. And then they go on and blow out Slovakia and Latvia, and Taylor Raddysh has a crazy four-goal game and a natural hatty.

Slovakia takes Mitchell Stephens’s ankle with them though, and it fucking sucks, because Mitchell is a hell of an energy guy. But they soldier on. They have to.

Nate Bastian comes over from Mississauga to watch one of their games in the Air Canada Center, and Mikey goes fucking apeshit and scores and then loses like all his chill the minute he steps off the ice and sees Nater waiting for him.

Luc honestly cannot wait for them to pull their heads out of their asses.

 

They play Team USA last in the round robin, because USA is really fucking good like always, and the Americans take out Phil Myers on the way to a 3-1 win over Canada on New Year's Eve. They take out _Phil_ , sweet happy Phil, on the top d-pairing with Chabby.

Phil is out for probably the rest of the tournament with a concussion. Mitchell is still out, with his ankle problem.

Man, fuck the Americans.

 

“Fuck the Americans,” Jérémy Lauzon says. He’s pissed because Phil failed the concussion test that the trainer administered, and they all know that there’s no way he’ll be back in time for the beginning of the playoff round.

Also, because Jérémy and Phil are fucking always together, and now they’re not.

The mood of the team is dampened by their first loss of the tournament, but it’s New Year’s Eve, and they’re in a bar in the hotel lobby, so a few of the guys are trying their hardest to be cheerful about it. Chabby, god fucking bless him, is loudly talking about how they’re gonna come out ready to kick some ass against the Czechs. Luc knows that Chabby is probably hurting more than almost everyone except Jérémy, cause Chabby and Phil had _great_ chemistry before Phil went down. You can’t buy that kind of chemistry with just anyone, not easily.

“And it’s New Year’s,” Chabby points out to anyone who’ll listen.

Jérémy makes a sad little sound, looking tired and heartsore, and there are lines of exhaustion on his face that weren’t there before Phil’s injury. “I’m gonna go back and sit with Phil, so he’s not alone,” he says, and then he leaves very quickly.

Phil is resting in a room by himself upstairs, away from light or sound or twenty-one rowdy boys, anything that will aggravate his head. It fucking sucks to be him right now.

It’s good that he’ll have his teammate with him for New Year’s at least. Rouyn-Noranda. They’re a good bunch of kids there.

“We’ll get them for this,” Barz says, watching Jérémy go, and Luc nods seriously.

The pressure is on, and it’s only going to get higher.

The clock ticks closer and closer to midnight.

Chabby gets tired of being optimistic at the tops of his lungs and squeezes into Luc’s booth, settling himself in Luc’s lap, which definitely doesn’t work because Chabby is too fucking tall for that and all bony too. God, he needs to put on some fucking weight.

“You’re gonna need to put on some weight in Ottawa,” Luc says absently as Chabby presses an elbow into his ribs. He smooths down Chabby’s hair, gently like he’s petting a dog. Or a Sea Dog. That’s fucking hilarious.

“Next year,” Chabby says. He relaxes against Luc and lays his chin on top of Luc’s head.

Thomas Chabot is solid, always solid, a calming presence and a leader on the team. He’s also one of Luc’s oldest friends.

Luc isn’t like super sentimental, but he thinks he would probably kill a man for Thomas Chabot.

At the bar itself, Mathieu and Julien are sitting on barstools next to each other, knees bumping, nursing their drinks and chatting.

Chabby watches him watch them.

“They’re just talking,” he says softly. “Jozy knows what he’s doing.”

“Doing with what?” Luc asks, confused.

Chabby shakes his head, a fond little smile on his face. “You’re kinda willfully blind, you know that, Duber? You’re so fucking smart, but you don’t let yourself see the really fucking obvious sometimes.”

“I see plenty.”

Julien lifts his head, makes eye contact with Luc. He smiles and waves a little. Jozy looks up too, waves and salutes a bit with his drink before drawing Julien back into whatever conversation they’re having.

In his lap, Chabby laughs quietly. “You have no idea, dude.”

Luc is starting to think that either Chabby sees more than he’s letting on, or Chabby is going fucking insane from the pressure.

After a bit, he shifts him so that Chabby is seated on the booth next to him, pressed along his side instead of cutting off the blood in his legs. Luc is a big guy, but so is Chabby, and having almost 200 lbs of hockey player in your lap gets uncomfortable after a while.

“It’s awful close to midnight,” Chabby says.

Yeah. Luc checks his watch. Two minutes until 2017 and the end of a crazy year for Luc: the Combine, the draft, the trade.

“You gonna go over to Jules?”

Luc shakes his head. “Me and Jules don’t need to be with each other all the time.”

Julien Gauthier is—Julien is sweet, and kind, and really good at sex, and his blowjobs make Luc fucking _cry_ sometimes, but Luc and him aren’t exclusive. Look, Luc can _prove_ that they aren’t. He doesn’t need Julien for everything. Plus, he’s tipsy and comfortable here, warm with Chabby by his side.

Chabby looks at him like he just tried to grow another head, right here in the bar. “You poor fucker,” he says.

“Thanks,” Luc says drily.

He doesn’t want to tell Chabby that there’s more, that there’s something going on with Julien, like, with Julien’s heart, which is too fragile for Luc’s hands. Luc can play hockey, he can dangle and shoot and score like a fucking dream, but he can’t hold a heart.

He doesn’t want to use _that word_ , because saying it might make it true, but the chain on Christmas? Kind of a big clue.

It’s fucking terrifying.

“Thirty!” someone shouts, and suddenly the whole bar is alive. More than two dozen voices start chanting, counting down the seconds.

Luc joins in, Chabby’s voice deep and steady next to his, and then on one, he closes his eyes and lays a light kiss on Thomas’s lips. It’s nice, very friendly, a kiss shared between brothers, nothing at all like the dizzying kisses he shares with Julien. It’s what Luc needs right now. Luc doesn’t need to fly; he needs to stay on solid ground.

“Happy New Year, Chabs.”

Chabby blinks at him, slow and amused in the dim light of the bar, the sounds of everyone shouting and cheering in the background. His fingers are bunched in the shoulder of Luc’s shirt.

“Happy New Year, PL. That was some fuckery right there.”

Luc grins and takes a drink from his glass, and his eyes flick over to the bar. Julien is staring at him, face blank for a second before he remembers to plaster on a smile. Jozy is gone, the barstool next to Julien empty.

“Just go to him,” Chabby says, low in his ear. “It’s what you want.”

Yeah, it is. What the hell. Julien fucks and plays hockey with too much heart, but he does it so fucking well, and Luc is weak.

He slides out of the booth and walks over, measured steps, until he is standing between Julien’s legs.

“It’s New Year’s,” he says, unnecessarily.

Julien nods. He peeks at Luc, lips quirked up a bit in a pretty faked out smile. “Yeah, it is. Happy New Year, Luc.”

“I should’ve come over earlier.” Luc blows out a breath, laughing a little at how awkward he feels. “Thomas is a terrible kisser.”

“Compared to me, you mean?”

The smile on Julien’s face is real now, the edges finding the corners of his eyes. It’s a good smile. It makes Luc feel warm, like the booze lighting him up from the inside out.

“Yeah, hotshot. Wanna go back and ring in the new year together?”

Julien doesn’t waste time with words. His fingers catch in Luc’s belt loops, draw him in, one hand coming up to cup his jaw, and his mouth tastes like champagne, bubbly sweet.

It’s not a midnight kiss, but it’s just as good, just as real.

Yeah, they aren’t anything, but Luc can’t really deny that Julien still makes him feel like the champagne that he was drinking—like fizzing bubbles in his throat, like flying.

 

They beat the Czech Republic again, in the quarter-finals. It’s a mess of a game.

Mitchell is back, which makes Luc happy, but Phil is not, which fucking blows. Claguer is on the top pairing with Chabby now, Chabby, who plays the game like he’s possessed. It’s a hard-fought game, scary-close sometimes, and the Czechs don’t fucking go away, but Julien finally puts them away for good with two goals to get Canada the W.

“I’m gonna blow you so fucking hard tonight,” Luc yells as they celly, half-joking, and Julien laughs and laughs before going to accept his player of the game award.

Luc laughs too, caught up in his happiness, in his own happiness and the team’s and Julien’s.

 

The hotel has a room rec which is great for team hangouts and bonding, and Hockey Canada sort of takes over it for the tournament. They get in a ton of card games until Dante fucking fleeces a few guys over poker, since that’s what they teach you at BU apparently, and then they turn to video games.

Mikey and Dylan are in the corner playing pool with Kale and Barz, and they are all obnoxiously bad at it. Luc thinks he could do a way better job, except he can’t play pool in the same room as Julien anymore, because Julien ends up doing things when Luc is bent over to take a shot and everyone else gets upset about having to see it.

It’s okay. Luc is just as good at Mario Kart as he is at pool. Proof: he is like half a lap ahead of Julien, and definitely beating Hartsy and Raddy.

Julien slips his foot under Luc’s leg and slides it up along Luc’s inner thigh, from his knee almost up to his balls, which are very sensitive thank you very much, and Luc takes his eyes off the screen for like, half a second maybe. It’s enough for him to drive off the cliff though.

“Hey, fucking cheater!” he snaps, though he can’t stop the smile taking over his face. “Redo, come on, you owe me one.”

“Suck my dick,” Julien says easily. He’s grinning, smug as fuck.

Luc throws his snapback at him.

“If you’re gonna do that, get a room!” Nico says, but he hasn’t even lifted his eyes from his phone, focused on whatever vine he’s watching with Speersy. It looks like some guy doing basketball tricks, from what Luc can see. Not that he’s trying really hard, cause Julien is smiling and whacking him in the face with his own snapback, which is just rude. Almost as rude as cheating.

Chabby only shakes his head, snorting quietly. “I’ve seen enough of Gauth’s dick the past two weeks to last me a lifetime, and I seriously don’t need to think about it in Duber’s mouth.”

Stromer interrupts them from the pool table. “Hey, speak English, guys, not all of us grew up speaking French.”

That is _so_ Ontario.

Luc does switch to English though. “Jules is just bitter that I caught him cheating.”

“I don’t cheat,” Julien says, fake outrage, and Luc makes a face at him.

“Guys, be friends.” That’s Beaner, Beaner who gets all _let’s hold hands and love everyone_ once he’s four beers in.

“Fwiends,” Luc mutters under his breath.

Raddysh lets out a little giggle. “You’re a fucking nerd, Duber.”

Luc loses this race and then the next, because Carter goes into some goalie zen mode where he has zero feelings and fucking destroys everyone else. No yelling, no shoving, just Carter Hart, beast mode. Goalies are so scary.

“That was legit the scariest thing I’ve ever seen you do,” Taylor says, and yeah.

Carter laughs his awkward little laugh, looking pleased. “Helps that PL and Jules were arguing with each other.”

Julien kicks Luc a little. It’s a gentle kick, more like a prod in the thigh, and Luc looks over at him. Julien has that look in his eyes again, all intense and determined, which means that either a goalie is about to get undressed, or Luc is.

Luc resists the very strong urge to swallow. “Gonna call it a night,” he says to the room.

Barz leans on his pool cue and smirks at him. “Yeah, ride that D like you’re on the forecheck, Duber!”

Fucking Mathew Barzal.

Luc flips him off (again) and gets up, and Julien drops his controller in Beaner’s lap and gets up to follow him.

“Are you guys actually gonna like, hook up, cause I wanna sleep in my bed tonight and I’m kinda tired of borrowing someone else’s,” Jozy says. There is a sort of hopeless look on his face, like he’s asking but he already knows the answer and he doesn’t like it.

Julien has been kicking Jozy out of his room so they can hook up and then pass out without Luc having to do the walk of I-just-got-laid-and-it-was-awesome back to his own room. Look at that, chivalry isn’t dead after all.

They could probably bone in Luc’s bed, and if Barz were there he probably wouldn’t find it weird at all. Though it would definitely be weird for Luc. Barz is hot and all, and he’s really good at cuddling during movies, but Luc doesn’t think he’s ready for the whole Mat Barzal experience. And he’s not really interested either. Best just to leave that to Chabby.

“We’re gonna talk strategy,” Julien tells Jozy, halfway out the door.

“Is that what they’re calling it now?” Jozy says. “Man, and here I am still calling them hook ups.”

“Video game strategy so he doesn’t keep losing.” It’s a terrible explanation, but Julien isn’t trying very hard. The door swings shut behind him.

As soon as the sounds from the rec room are cut off, Luc reels Julien in, like he’s one of those fish that Mikey wears on his jersey in Mississauga. He twists his fingers in Julien’s shirt, which is a little hard since it’s stretched pretty nicely over his chest, and says, “That was a dirty play earlier.”

Julien puts his hands on Luc’s waist, solid like anchors. “Gotta keep your head up.”

What an asshole. Luc’s chest feels warm with fondness. He keeps his head up, looks Julien in the eye before leaning in to kiss him.

Julien’s grip tightens, one hand settling on Luc’s lower back, pulling him closer. It’s intimate, like it always is when it comes to Julien. Like Julien just has this way of sucking all the air out of the room when he’s close to Luc, though that might be because Luc is getting the breath kissed out of him right now.

“Room?” he murmurs, a little hoarse, and Julien nods.

They end up in Luc’s since Barz is still in the rec room, and Julien takes his time until Luc is nearly crying with how good it is.

 

They play Sweden in the semis, undefeated Sweden, and they come out on top.

Luc forces a turnover halfway into the second, gets the puck behind the net and then out to Julien who is crashing the crease, and Julien taps it past the goal line.

A Swedish player shoves him as he scores and he falls to his back beside the net, doesn’t even try to get up, makes eye contact with Luc instead, who is rushing over, and there is so much happiness on his face—

Luc drops to the ice.

The angle is shitty as fuck and Luc is on his belly, legs kicking in excitement, whole body flooded with adrenaline, but Julien is reaching for him, his arms are closing around Luc’s shoulders, face pressed to his, squirming around like a turtle on its back. Julien is yelling something, breathing hot and heavy against Luc’s cheek, and Luc can’t hear him over the sound of the screaming crowd and his own thundering heartbeat in his ears, but he can _feel_ him.

It takes his breath away, the joy that rips through him: partly his own, partly Julien’s, partly the rest of their boys in red.

And they keep coming. They push and push and _push_ , and Sweden gives way, under Mitchell and Cirelli and Stromer, and Carter is a fucking brick wall, perfect and impossible, and Julien, fucking _Julien_ again—

Julien gets the empty netter to seal it 5-2, and Luc’s heart _sings_ with it.

 _Gold_.

They’re going to fucking play for fucking gold.

Gold, gold, _gold_.

 

“You thinking about how close we are?” Luc asks.

Phil is asleep at the foot of the bed, curled around Jérémy, who is playing guardian angel again, so Luc makes sure to keep his voice down.

Julien shifts against him, relaxed and a little sleepy. He had media duties earlier after his second straight two-goal game, and the reporters had asked him a lot of stupid questions about what they hoped to achieve. “We just want the gold,” Julien had said, because it’s fucking obvious.

“It’s happening tomorrow,” he says now, quietly into Luc’s hair. It all ends tomorrow.

“Going for gold, baby.”

Julien’s fingers catch in his shirt, try to draw him closer, even though they’re already pressed together from shoulder to ankle. Chabby is half-dozing along his back, tangled up with Barz, and six boys in one bed is too fucking many, and there’s nowhere to go.

That doesn’t stop Luc from trying anyway, leaning in to kiss him, chapped lips and a little sweat and the low, low sound of Julien whispering his name like a trembling prayer: for victory, for gold, for Luc.

 

The gameday nerves are something that Luc will never get used to, but they’re something that he’s lived with all his life. There’s never been a bigger stage though, never so many eyes on him, expecting so much, expecting them to bring it on home on home ice.

He’s woken by the sudden absence of warmth, reaching out blindly for the empty space where Julien was sleeping just a few minutes ago.

The bed dips under Julien’s weight as he kneels behind Luc. He drops a short kiss to the back of his neck, sneaks a hand under the covers to run over Luc’s back, skin on skin. “Get up, come on. Bus is waiting.”

Luc sits up, letting the covers settle around his waist. “Feel like I just fell asleep.” His voice sounds like ass.

Julien is busy buttoning up his shirt, already halfway into his gameday suit, but he stops to check his watch. “Two-hour pre-game nap, just like the doctor ordered.”

“I know. Just feel…” _Not ready_ , Luc’s brain pipes up helpfully. Shut the fuck up, brain.

“Yeah. Me too.” Julien hooks a finger in Luc’s chain, the chain that he gave him, and gives it a gentle tug, like he’s pulling a dog on a leash. “Come on. Get dressed.”

He gets back to his feet and Luc follows him, and then Julien is digging out his tie and looping it around his neck, bright red on his white shirt.

Luc reaches out before he even thinks. It’s not that Julien doesn’t know how to tie a fucking tie because he does, but it’s game day, the gold-medal game. The last time that he and Julien will suit up for Canada at the World Juniors, probably, hopefully.

Julien drops his hands the second Luc touches his tie, and Luc focuses on getting it right: under, over, loop through, pull tight. He tucks the knot right at the base of Julien’s throat.

“Thanks,” Julien says, so quietly that Luc almost doesn’t hear it.

He settles his hands on Luc’s waist then, huge and grounding and warm on bare skin, the tips of his fingers dragging over the tops of Luc’s boxers. There is a look in his eyes, but not the heated one he gives Luc when he wants to hook up. This is softer, sweeter, open and so fucking vulnerable and...reverent.

Julien ducks in for a kiss, closed-lipped but lingering. “Go get dressed,” he says, gently.

Luc gets dressed.

Luc gets dressed with shaking fingers and a pounding heart, and his stomach feels like a mess and he can’t get Julien’s eyes out of his head, the way Julien had looked at him, like Luc was something maybe more precious than gold. Because Julien always kisses with everything he’s feeling, and he was feeling a lot, and fuck, fuck.

He gets his pants on and then his shirt, misses a button on the way up and has to go back and rebutton everything. And then his tie, red like Julien’s, like Canada.

“I got you,” Julien says, and his hands come up to return the favor. He’s still talking in that low voice, like they’re squeezed into a tiny space together, sharing air, instead of standing in a pretty sweet hotel room in Montreal.

Luc lets him, feeling helpless.

This isn’t something he _does_ , standing still so Julien can get his tie on right, steady fingers before a big game. Like the way his mom fixed his dad’s tie every night before his dad went out behind the Baie-Comeau bench. This is just as intimate as rolling into bed with Julien (or onto the floor, or against a wall, or on top of a table), it’s just a different _kind_ of intimate. It’s like, domestic. Holy shit it’s fucking domestic.

His mind suddenly jumps to the totally inappropriate thought of him and Julien fixing each other up before an NHL game, even though Columbus and Raleigh are like eight hours apart.

There are butterflies in his stomach, and they are panicking. Or maybe they’re really pissed off bees.

And god, Luc fucking gets it, okay? He gets what it means.

It’s just really awful timing, right now.

Is this how Julien feels all the time?

Julien lets go of his tie and catches his hands, lacing their fingers together. “Nerves?”

“I’m not nervous,” Luc says, trying for calm. He’s not sure he gets it right.

“Your hands do the—You keep fidgeting. And you rub your thumb. And you hunch your shoulders, and you look down.”

Luc pulls his hands away and puts them in his pockets.

“We’re gonna be fine, Luc. We got this. We’re gonna go out there and win this thing.”

“Yeah, we’re good.” They are. They are so good, him and Julien and the rest of the boys.

He forces himself to focus on the game, because the game is here and now, the only thing that matters. Luc’s fucking bad-timing-of-the-century realization that he wants to like _heart-bone_ instead of regular-bone Julien is gonna have to wait.

They finish dressing in silence, socks and shoes and suit jacket. Luc gives his hair one more brush before looking over. “Okay, you ready?”

Julien looks like he wants to kiss him again, and Luc is glad when he doesn’t, because if Julien kisses him like he did earlier, Luc isn’t sure what would happen. He doesn’t need his world rocked again so soon after the last time, thanks.

Julien hugs him instead, which is pretty decent, and then they head downstairs.

By the time they step out of the elevator, Luc’s I-have-feelings-for-Julien panic has been mostly replaced by final-game-in-a-series panic. Which is just another form of terror, really.

“We’re gonna blaze it out there,” Mikey says, hanging out by the potted plants, and his smile looks sorta queasy, but at least he’s trying.

The rest of the team trickles into the hotel lobby in twos and threes, all of them in black suits and matching red ties. Like, squad goals.

Barz is the last one down, and he looks around at everyone, all satisfied like an evil cat. “We look so fucking good, boys.”

“I can’t see my tie,” Hartsy jokes as they walk to the bus, poor red-and-green colorblind Hartsy, and Luc laughs, feels just the tiniest bit less like he’s suffocating.

They have ice, and they have gold waiting for them, like it was always meant to be.

Ahead of him, Julien flashes him a quick smile before putting on his headphones and climbing on the bus.

After the game, after gold, there can be more. After gold.

 

The game is

fast

physical

exhausting

 

everything

 

Barz gets off a great pass and the net is wide fucking open, Parsons caught out of position, no one between Luc and the game winner. It's a gift-wrapped goal, and Luc—

Luc misses the puck.

 

So yeah. They get silver. It’s better than sixth, but it’s not gold, either.

 

There are twenty-two heads bowed in front of their home crowd. Twenty-two breaking hearts.

Luc doesn't cry on the ice. Luc is stone-cold, still like frozen water. The silver goes over his head, the handshakes and defeated hugs, the sound of USA celebrating, the Montreal crowd. The shot that he missed earlier. God fucking damn it.

He keeps his head down, eyes dry. It feels like there's a hurricane in his chest, and the only thing holding it back is his pride.

Julien cries, a little on the ice and then a lot in the locker room. He covers his face when he does, sitting in his stall in all his gear, and the cameras leave him the fuck alone at least.

God, they can still hear the Americans.

Luc doesn’t talk to anyone in the room, because there are no words to describe this, so he wraps his arms around Nico Roy—Nico, who took the last shot for Canada in the shootout and lost the puck and was stopped by Parsons. Nico, who is crying his _heart_ out right now, playing that shot over and over in his head, the puck slipping off his stick, knowing that it was done, that they had failed. Luc knows, because he is doing it too.

Carter is sitting in his stall, hunched over his giant goalie pads. He looks like a turtle that is trying to curl in on itself until it disappears. Completely fucking gone, poof just like that, crushed under the weight of what they didn’t do, how much they’ve let down their country.

_O Canada, our home and native land._

Luc holds it together until they’re back at the hotel and then he cries when he gets to his room, silent sobs, and it feels like it goes on for hours.

 

He wakes up to quiet rustling, and then Julien bending over him, whispering. “I gotta go. Plane leaves really soon.”

And then there is the sound of the door clicking shut, the last smell of Julien’s aftershave, and the fading warmth of his lips on Luc’s cheek, like a good dream that’s just ended.

 

Luc stops in the airport for coffee. His hair is a mess and he’s tired from the nightmares, and the silver medal is a weight buried somewhere in his suitcase where he’ll hopefully never find it.

The airport restaurant is empty this early in the morning. The televisions are on though, three of them, highlights from last night’s game playing on their giant screens. Luc watches every second of it, the two leads they gave up, the puck off the heel of his stick, their every missed shot in the shootout, and then he walks to his terminal without looking back.

He gets back to Cape Breton and packs his bags for Blainville, picking up the pieces of his life and shipping them out west. And then he says his goodbyes: to the trainers, the staff, the team, to the arena and the island.

He hadn’t been doing so hot in Cape Breton, but it still stings to leave.

No one says anything about the Eagles getting rid of their slumping talent, just as no one had said anything about Luc being sent back down for a disappointing and unproductive season in the Q while Matthews and Laine tore up the Big Leagues. Just as no one had said that five assists in seven games at the World Juniors was an underwhelming performance.

No one said any of that, at least not to his face. Luc had known anyway cause he's not stupid.

People don’t say a lot of things to his face, but he still knows.

 

* * *

 

 _heard you got traded to saint john_ , he texts Julien two days later, when he’s finally settled down in Blainville.

Julien sends back a bunch of emojis, the sea and then a dog and then a few goats for good measure, because Julien is a dork who never gets tired of making goat jokes: (Water Wave )(Dog Face )(Goat )(Goat )(Goat ) 

It’s very cute, very Sea Dog. Very Julien.

Luc puts his phone away and steps onto the ice in Blainville, breathes in the sound of his new home arena, his new team. New Armada sweater on his back, new brothers, same goal at the end of the season.

They have so much work to do.

 

* * *

 

Julien scores twice in Game 1 of the President’s Cup Finals, and the Saint John Sea Dogs win, 6-3.

It’s not as lopsided as the score looks, though the Dogs’ special teams make the difference. A few lucky bounces go their way, a power play goal and then a shorty on the first three shots of the game, even after the Armada dominate the early play. Luc could kick himself.

The Armada fight back after each goal, get to within one every time the Dogs try to pull ahead. It just isn’t enough.

And then Jozy, and then the empty netter and then

Julien, a bit damp from his shower, cheeks pink under whatever godawful playoff beard he’s been trying to grow for the past month and a half. He’s just a little smug, the way he gets after he nets a few during an important game.

He’s a fucking beaut.

“You did good today,” he tells Luc, which is not completely true, but Luc will take it.

“Just watch your back tomorrow,” he says, easily. “We’re gonna kick your asses so hard you’ll be begging on your knees for us to stop.”

It’s whatever. He can take the L today.

Luc has been here before, down a game in the series. Hell, the Armada gave up one to Charlottetown before storming back with four straight last series to get to the finals, so it’s definitely not the end of the world. Hurts, but it's not the end.

He didn’t get a point tonight, but it’s one game in. Steady, one game at a time.

And he’s in Saint John for today and tomorrow, so.

“We should hook up,” he says.

Julien agrees, very fast. At least they’re on the same page.

 

It had been weird at first, getting to Blainville and starting over again. Forcing himself to get used to Armada hockey, putting aside the shattered hopes and disappointment of a terrible first half in Cape Breton, followed by World Juniors silver.

Silver, and not gold.

(He also had to get used to Julien being so fucking far away in Saint John, instead of two rooms over. Saint John is nowhere near Blainville.

It’s not quite as far as the distance from Cape Breton to Val-d’Or, but it’s not like Luc was super torn up about Julien being that far away, before. He never used to Google Map the kilometers between them like some kind of horrible sap.

He’s not thinking about Julien and the future anyway, because thinking about that is—too much.)

So yeah. A lot changes. Luc is a hockey player, and change is a part of the life.

 

The Armada’s hotel in Saint John is okay but Luc has a roommate, so they head over to Julien’s billet house, where Julien’s room conveniently has a lock. Julien has only been living there for four months, ever since Val-d’Or traded him to the Sea Dogs, but he’s settled in. There are seals like _everywhere_. Or sea dogs, whatever they’re called.

They don’t make it to the bed the first time and just end up boning on the floor, which is pretty dece. Nice rug.

Julien helps him up onto the bed afterward because cuddling is half the fun of hooking up with him, in Luc’s opinion. Julien is fucking great at cuddling. Like a marshmallow that is really good at hockey.

“You missed me,” he says fondly as Luc snuggles closer. (Not that Luc would ever admit to using the word snuggle.)

“Haven’t seen you since January,” Luc says. Saint John only plays Blainville twice a season, both of them before their trades.

Julien runs his hand over Luc’s back, and then he reaches up with his other hand to play with the chain around Luc’s neck. “Missed you too.”

It’s been a crazy four months since World Juniors, with the second half of the season and the playoff push and then the playoffs themselves. Three rounds, sixteen games. Seventeen, if he’s counting tonight. Luc has been too busy to think about Julien as more than a really great part of his World Juniors experience, but. He missed him.

“How’ve you been, anyway? You stopped texting.”

Luc freezes a little. “Been good. Got busy. We didn’t go around sweeping people left and right like you did.” Fucking 13-2 record. Unbelievable.

“No I mean. You sounded kinda unhappy? But not like really unhappy. Just felt like there was something going on with you.”

“Trust me, goat boy, there’s nothing wrong with me,” Luc says tightly.

“Not saying there’s something wrong with you, Luc. Just wondering if you’re okay.”

If he’s okay.

Luc used to wear a screaming eagle on his chest. Now he wears a big fucking A for Armada, to replace the A that he used to wear in Cape Breton.

Luc used to know what he wanted, and he used to know how to feel about those things.

Sure, he's okay.

But this isn’t something he wants to talk about, not with the playoffs happening, and not with Julien—Julien, who is half the problem, who makes Luc want things he shouldn’t want. Things like Raleigh, like the Hurricanes, things that are bigger than hockey.

So Luc rolls over and straddles him, rolling his hips slowly until Julien goes silent and breathless. This at least, he knows how to do.

 

“God, I missed you—so fucking much,” Luc whispers, and Julien stops moving for half a second, just enough for Luc to know that he heard. He doesn’t say anything though, just ducks his head and kisses Luc more gently than he has any right to.

 

And later, much later that night

“I thought about you sometimes,” he says, low and in the dark, when Julien has been quiet for so long that Luc is sure he’s asleep. “You fucked me up big-time, Jules. I couldn’t stop thinking about you, after World Juniors.”

Julien moves his hand suddenly, petting Luc’s side all comforting and shit, and Luc jumps.

“Jesus Christ, were you awake? What the fuck.”

“Kinda yeah,” Julien mumbles. He sounds tired. “Was falling asleep, sorta, but.”

“You weren’t supposed to hear that.”

“Mmm.” Julien’s arm tightens around him, and he sighs a little against Luc’s neck. “Go to sleep, Luc. Game tomorrow.”

Luc closes his eyes and is trying to relax into sleep when he hears Julien continue. “I think about you all the time, too.”

 

Game 2 is so fucking ugly.

Both teams take a ton of penalties again, and Julien just keeps scoring.

Luc is all over Jozy, gets away with a few shots that border on dirty. And Chabby. God he just needs to stop Chabby, and he can’t, and his stick ends up in Chabby’s face. Luc is sent to the box for that one.

Why isn’t the puck fucking going into the fucking Sea Dogs net?

Julien scores again, his fourth goal this series, and then a few minutes later, he gets a misconduct for a high hit to Teasdale and is thrown out of the game. The Armada don’t score on the five-minute power play.

In fact, the Armada don’t score at all. Saint John wins, 4-0. It’s not exactly a blowout, except for the part where it feels like shit.

 

“That hit was so fucking stupid.”

Julien smiles the way he did when he’d been ejected from the game, the embarrassed smile of someone who knows they’ve done something really naughty. Luc can sort of see his cheeks going pink, though it might just be his imagination or the city lights reflecting off the harbor onto Julien’s face.

He looks at Luc from under his lashes. “It was a stupid hit, yeah. I’m probably gonna get suspended for that, aren’t I?”

Luc had gotten suspended last season right before the playoffs, when he was still an Eagle. “Maybe? I don’t know, man. Sucks if you are.”

“Shitty fucking timing, being the finals and all.”

Yeah. Watching from the sidelines is one of the worst things Luc has ever done, especially when he knows he’s healthy and can go in. Felt like he’d been letting down the team.

Well, he’d let down the Eagles plenty, this season.

And there it is again, that nagging guilt and anger, which shows up whenever Luc thinks about his old team.

It’s a bit chilly out along the water, and the wind is screwing with Luc’s hair which Luc had carefully combed after his post-game shower, but it’s nice. Quiet, kind of, and a little isolated. It makes Luc feel brave enough to say:

“I wanted to ask you before. Uh, about your trade.”

“Yeah?”

“Were you okay with it?” God, he sounds so dumb.

Julien’s hands are in his coat pockets, and he’s walking slowly, watching the ground in front of him. He looks up at Luc’s question though, and everyone always says that Julien looks sweet and kinda harmless off the ice, but his eyes see right through Luc. “Were you? With yours, I mean.”

“I kind of overreacted, once I let myself think about it.”

“Define overreacted, cause I don’t think I’ve ever seen you overreact before.”

Luc shakes his head, almost smiling. “Didn’t know what the fuck to feel. Freaked out a bit, I think, on the plane over from Cape Breton.”

“Well, I’m pretty sure that Stephens cried when he was traded from Saginaw, so.”

“But it’s _London_.” Everyone fucking loves London for some reason.

“I didn’t say he cried for long. I’m just saying it’s a big deal, getting traded. Like there’s a lot going on, you know?”

“But were you okay with it?”

Julien shrugs, which isn’t really an answer. “I guess?”

Luc doesn’t know what the fuck he was hoping for when he brought up this conversation, but this isn’t it. “Oh,” he says.

He kind of wants to ask if Julien still dreams about Val-d’Or, the way Luc dreams about Cape Breton.

Luc likes Blainville, but it’s not Cape Breton. Nothing is really like Cape Breton, with its horrible winter weather and long fucking road trips. Luc had loved the Cape. Going back to play at the Nest after his trade had sucked balls, and he had been relieved when Charlottetown swept them in the second round. Relieved, and a little guilty.

(It’s not—It’s not wrong to feel a little angry still, is it? He’s a professional, but he’s human, too.)

“You’re not okay with it, are you?” Julien asks.

“I’m…” Luc pauses, searching for the right word. He doesn’t know how to explain that he still doesn’t know how he’s supposed to feel. That when he heard the news, he stood shock-still with a mixture of relief and bone-deep hurt. It feels stupid to feel—rejected—since he’d wanted to leave Cape Breton, and the Armada are Cup contenders in the finals while the Eagles aren’t, but, you know.

Some part of him had still come back with _you’re not wanted, you can’t help us_.

Which sounds really fucking dumb.

“It’s whatever,” he says, hollowly. “It happened and I’m with a good group of guys here.”

Julien is a fucking mind-reader, or maybe he’s just good at seeing through Luc’s bullshit. “You didn’t want to leave, did you. I thought you wanted your trade. At selection camp, you said—”

“I—I did want to leave.” Luc runs a hand through his hair, frustrated. “I wanted to play for a winning team. And I was glad when they announced it, you know? But I mean, I was an Eagle for two and a half years.”

“And it’s hard to let go.”

Luc nods, ducking his head. “It’s stupid. I only played one game back at the Nest after I was traded, and it should’ve been easy, but it wasn’t.”

It’s been four months. Why can’t he just let go?

Julien stops walking suddenly, and his face is serious when Luc looks. It looks a little weird, Julien with his easy size and energy, trying to make himself small and still. “You know, the Dogs, we didn’t play Val-d’Or after my trade. So the first time I saw them again, that was in the playoffs. I played with them for three and a half seasons, and I won a Cup with them my rookie season, and then I got traded and in Round 2…” His voice trails off.

“You swept them,” Luc finishes.

The smile on Julien’s face is the one he gives to the cameras when he really doesn’t want to smile. “It’s what we gotta do. And for the record, I was glad that we beat them. I was really fucking glad. I’m proud to be a Sea Dog. It just...hurt a little, doing it in Val-d’Or, you know?”

Luc swallows. Yeah, he knows. It hurts, like it always hurts going back to the arena that you called your home for years and playing your old teammates. But it’s a part of their lives. It’s something they’ll have to get used to, especially in a world as unforgiving as professional sports.

This is just the tiniest taste of what the NHL will be like, and Luc wants to be strong enough to deal with it.

“I’m supposed to be okay,” he says.

“You’re still fucked up about it, so clearly you’re not.”

Well thanks for spelling it out, Jules.

Julien turns to Luc and wraps his arms around him, and Luc can see the water over his shoulder, and little white boats shining in the darkness. He can feel Julien’s heart, still racing from the game, and his hands on his back.

“You know you’re not alone, right?” Julien says quietly. “We—A lot of us got traded. Me and Cirelli and Stephens. We all went through the same thing. You could’ve talked to us.”

He doesn’t say it, but Luc hears it anyway. _You could’ve talked to_ me.

“It sounds stupid, cause I wanted it and then it happened—”

“Shit’s not always gonna be black and white. Especially not your feelings.”

God, Luc never thought of Julien as like, _wise_ or anything, not like Mikey who likes to drop little pieces of wisdom out of the blue, but that’s legit.

He tucks his face in Julien’s shoulder and lets himself be held for another minute.

 

The series shifts to Blainville. If Luc was hoping that home ice advantage would wake up his team, he’s wrong.

Julien is suspended for the next two games, which could be the rest of the series, and the Sea Dogs are without one of their top scorers. It should be a great opportunity for the Armada, but their passes are shit and their shots get swallowed up, and they can’t get any offense going. The Dogs get another shutout.

Luc hasn’t posted a point in three games, his longest point drought since he got to Blainville.

Fucking Callum Booth.

 

“Are you still thinking about your trade?” Julien asks as they sneak past Luc’s billet parents into Luc’s room.

Luc is riding a nice buzz because his team is down 0-3 in the series, and Julien is just this side of tipsy because his team is up 3-0 in the series, and they’re both a little faded at the edges. Which means Luc doesn’t wanna talk about it.

“Fuck the Cape,” he mumbles instead.

Julien says, “That’s not healthy,” but his fingers are undoing the buttons on Luc’s shirt, so.

“I’m fucking over it,” Luc says, and then he trips over some shit he left on the floor and falls onto the bed, dragging Julien with him. His buzz is starting to wear off and all the little doubts about hockey are creeping back in, so he says, “We should fuck.” Fucking sounds like a great idea right now.

Like, a really good idea. Better than thinking about the game.

“Yeah okay,” Julien says, breathless.

He stops and looks at Luc, and Luc has no idea what he just did, but Julien is looking at him all softly, the way people look at really really nice things like their Xboxes or the Cup.

“Luc,” Julien whispers, a little shaky, and then he switches to French.

Everyone calls him PL. Only Julien really calls him Luc.

Luc is starting to realize that there are a lot of things that fall into the “only Julien” category.

“You’re so pretty,” Julien says. He says it quietly, pressed against Luc’s cheek like a promise, and wow that is way too romantic chick flick for Luc to deal with. He can’t bring himself to pull away though, just digs his fingers into the muscles of Julien’s back and turns his head until his lips find Julien’s, shut him up a little. Because it’s too much when Julien gets sweet, when Julien calls him pretty, when Julien looks at him like Luc could make him happy.

Better to just get to the part where they bone and cuddle and Julien falls asleep on him.

That’s why he reaches for the zip on Julien’s pants and drags it down, with like a fuckton of intent.

Julien closes his eyes for a second, and then he strips off Luc’s tie. “Wanted to try something, last time. How do you feel right now?”

“Fucking great.”

“Good.” He stops to kiss Luc a few times, less sloppy than Luc was expecting, and his eyes are pretty clear when he pulls back. “D’you trust me?”

Luc suddenly feels a lot more sober than he’d like. The answer’s easy though. “Yeah.”

“Okay.” And then Julien wraps the tie around Luc’s eyes and ties it behind his head, slowly enough that Luc can stop him if he wants.

Luc doesn’t, halfway between curious and turned on.

“Is that okay?”

“Yeah.” Luc can see light, sort of, along the edges of the tie, but he can’t really see anything. It’s less scary than he thought it’d be.

He never thought about it before, and it makes him a little dizzy, that he can go out and play a 60 minute game against this huge, skilled player and then trust him to take care of him. It’s not a scary thought, though.

Julien keeps up a low murmur in French, quiet and soothing, and Luc—forgets.

About the playoffs, about the trade, about everything but the two of them.

 

They’re sort of sleeping but not really, and Luc is trying to enjoy the afterglow when Julien interrupts him.

“You know, we never talked about what we are.”

“We're not anything,” Luc says quickly, very calm.

Only one of them is winning the President’s Cup and going to Windsor to play in the Memorial Cup Tournament. There's no room in hockey for—There was never room for anything more.

“You're kind of a dick sometimes, you know, PL?” Julien says.

Okay, Luc can agree about that.

Julien sighs and lays his head on his shoulder, and Luc turns his face into his hair. Julien smells like shampoo, the kind you pack in little bottles to take on the road with you. “It’s okay,” Julien says. He doesn’t tell Luc what’s okay, but something like an uncomfortable lump forms in Luc’s throat. It feels weirdly like disappointment.

He jabs at Julien with his elbow. “What’s okay? That I’m a dick?”

Julien blinks up at him, slow and easy-going. “That you’re figuring things out. I don’t know.” He kisses Luc’s collarbone and then his neck. “You know how I feel. And I think you know how you feel too.”

Luc tries to sit up, and Julien catches him by the arms.

“Hey, it’s not a bad thing if you’re having a crisis.”

Luc doesn’t have crises. Luc is chill. Luc like, invented chill.

There are some guys who freak the fuck out about shit. Like, Jozy is always feeling ten things at once. And Stromer is a literal ongoing crisis, like all the time, because his life is a goddamn disaster and he’s actually dead inside.

Luc though? Luc is still fucking water.

“I'm not having a crisis.”

Julien looks at him like _uh, are you sure about that_ and Luc thinks he’s gonna let it go, the way he always lets things go, but suddenly Julien is pushing back, looking—not really angry, but tired and kind of sad. “You’re gonna have to figure things out eventually, Luc.”

God yeah, Luc knows that. He can’t keep flirting with yes and no when it comes to Julien, but both are kind of terrifying.

They’re good together, too good together, and Luc knows how it feels when a good thing doesn’t work out.

He should really stop doing this, since there are fucking _feelings_ involved, and hockey is tangled up at the core of this, but. It’s hard to let go.

 

Game 4. Luc plays angry and he plays desperate, and he can’t stay out of the box.

And the Armada still can’t fucking score. They haven’t scored since Game 1.

He can feel his anger bubbling over, so when Dove-McFalls pins Alain against the boards, Luc is there in a hot second, and then Chabby is getting in there, stick flying as he grabs Luc. Luc punches him.

He’s sent to the box for roughing, and when he gets out, he scores.

It breaks his point drought and he can feel the momentum swinging towards the Armada, but before they can even it up, Bourque scores and then Smallman and then Highmoore, and the Dogs are jumping after each goal, screaming in joy. Chabby is fucking saluting the crowd as they boo him.

Luc is playing his heart out and

It's not enough. Luc’s best is never enough. They lose, 5-1 in the game, a series sweep.

It hurts. God, Luc thought that he might get used to defeat, but it hurts more than it did last year, when the Eagles lost in the the quarter-finals to the Sea Dogs. This year, the hope was that much higher, the goal that much closer, the defeat that much harder to swallow. The Sea Dogs are lifting the President’s Cup in Blainville, in their own building.

It feels like—god, it feels like silver again, except this time he watched the dream crumble away game by game instead of in sudden death.

Luc hugs Montembeault, kisses his goalie mask and just holds him for a second.

And then they’re going through the handshake line, and the Sea Dogs are just a blur of faces in front of Luc, a lot of sweaty hands and “Good job”s and “You were amazing”s.

Chabby hugs him hard, crushing Luc to his chest and holding him there, like he can hug away the disappointment. Luc tucks his face in his neck.

“You were good, Duber,” Chabby says. “Proud of you, brother.”

“You too,” Luc says through a tight throat. “Good series. You really deserve this.”

He goes to pull back, but Thomas catches him before he can go far, which is really starting to hold up the line. His hand is bunched in Luc’s sweater. “One last thing. Get your shit together with whatever you’re doing with Jules. Don’t leave him hanging anymore.”

“I’m not—”

“He looks like someone broke into his house and stole his dog.”

Rosie is perfect and Luc might actually considering doing that, but. “Alright, man,” he says slowly, and Chabby nods and thumps him on the chest before moving on.

Jozy hugs him too, and then he says, “Did Chabby…?”

And Luc says, “Yeah.”

Jozy hugs him again.

When he gets to Julien, fully dressed even though he didn’t play, Luc is expecting...something. But Julien only shakes his hand and gives him a short hug, and then Luc is moving down the line to the next player, and it’s very anticlimactic.

 

The locker room is a fucking depressing place to be, but Luc forces himself to be a good teammate. He sticks around and hugs the guys, and the Armada might not be the team he grew up with, but it’s the team he’s got. It’s the team that brought him to the finals.

Before he heads for the showers, he picks up his phone and shoots off a quick text.

_hey can i see u before u go?_

Julien is probably taking a champagne shower or making out with the Cup with his teammates, but Luc waits 20 minutes anyway, and then he gets up and heads over to the visitor’s room.

He doesn’t really want to be in the room with twenty guys celebrating their championship win after beating his team, but Chabby was right about leaving things hanging.

Luc is still psyching himself up when the door opens and Boko Imama is standing in front of him, mostly naked. At least he’s wearing a towel, which is more than Luc can say for the three pale asses he can see over his shoulder. Imama looks Luc up and down, like he’s a bug that he’d like to squash.

“Looking for Gauth?”

Jesus, are they that obvious? “Yeah. He around?”

“I’ll go get him.” Imama doesn’t waste time asking if Luc wants to come in, which is pretty decent of him. Through the open door, Luc spots Simon Bourque climbing on top of his stall with what looks like a bottle of tequila.

And then Julien is there, mostly naked but still somehow wearing his Q Champions cap, and he looks so _happy_ until he sees Luc.

“Hey,” he says, and his voice is ridiculously gentle.

“I don’t need your pity,” Luc says, which, fuck. Not exactly how he wanted to start this. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine. You wanna go somewhere…?”

Luc takes them to a quiet corner just a ways from the locker room. It’s not even a real room, just like a bend in the hallway where they’ll have some privacy, away from any random arena staff wandering around. There are a lot of cameras here tonight.

Julien folds his (impressively big) arms over his chest. “What’s up, Luc?”

“So, in the handshake line. Chabs talked to me.”

Julien looks caught off-guard, and he lowers his arms. “Fuck, really? I fucking told him—”

“I’m sorry. For—For lots of things. Mostly for being a dick though. I guess, um, I care about you, Jules, and I didn’t know what to do about that.”

“I really like you too,” Julien says quietly, because he always knows what Luc is saying.

“So...Sorry I left you hanging, last night. I didn’t think—” He breaks off, takes a deep breath and gathers his thoughts and tries not to freak the fuck out about his own feelings. “The timing wasn’t right, not when we were playing each other in the finals. And next season, if we’re called up...”

If they’re lucky, if things go to plan, then Julien will play for the Hurricanes, in North Carolina, and Luc will settle into his future role in Columbus with the Blue Jackets. Divisional rivals.

“The timing’s never right,” Julien says. “I was hoping you’d think it was still worth it though.”

And Luc wants to say yes, but he can’t rush into this. He’s so fucking fast on the ice, loves the wind in his hair and the way the world blurs when he’s skating hard, but this time, he needs slow. “Ask me later?”

For a second, he’s afraid that it’s the wrong answer.

Julien gets it though. He’s nodding as Luc speaks, and then he leans in and kisses him on the cheek, more of a peck than anything. “Okay,” he says evenly. “Not tonight then.”

Not tonight. Luc needs tonight to go home and lick his wounds, and Julien wants to celebrate with his teammates. And he’s flying back to Saint John anyway. But later this week—yeah, later this week, they can talk.

 

Locker room cleanout always sucks, but Luc says a lot of things about hope and pride and love for the Armada and how far they came. It feels hollow, but he really does like Blainville. It hasn’t become _home_ as much as Cape Breton was, but it feels...like a good place to be. He’s going to miss it, he thinks.

And then he packs his bags and flies back to Rimouski.

He stays off Instagram and twitter, because he’s following Julien and Jozy and Chabby and a bunch of other Sea Dogs who are posting pictures and videos of themselves with the President’s Cup. The loss is still too raw for him to enjoy it for them.

He eats the biggest, most unhealthy meal he can get away with, and then he plays like nine straight hours on his Xbox before he can look at any of his friends again.

A few days later, he gets on a flight to Saint John.

 

Julien picks him up at the airport, and they don’t hug or kiss or anything, so Luc is left kind of confused and unsure of what to do. Like, it could be that Julien is giving him space, or it could be that shit’s weird between them now. Either way, he has no idea where the fuck they stand.

“So, um. I wanted to talk.” Luc is cringing inside even as he’s saying it, because yikes.

“That doesn’t sound scary at all.”

“That’s—Shut up, it’s not like that. I mean, we’re not like that. We’re not dating.”

“Uh huh. Good to be reminded.”

Julien is wearing sunglasses as he drives, so Luc can’t see his eyes. It makes him feel like he’s on unsteady ground, or uneven ice.

“I thought about it, at home. About if it was worth it.”

Julien turns into the driveway of his billet house and turns off the engine, but he doesn’t look at Luc or move to get out of the car. He looks like he’s holding his breath. Luc hopes he doesn’t pass out or anything from that.

“And…?” Julien says slowly.

“I thought, we’re never on the same team, except when we were both suiting up for World Juniors. We’re always playing against each other, and our teams are always really fucking far away. And it’s gonna be no different when we make it up.” Luc reaches out and touches Julien’s hand, resting on the stick shift. “Um, I still want…”

Julien turns his hand and laces their fingers together, waiting.

“You make me want things that aren’t just hockey,” Luc says. “Like, dating. And stuff.”

“Okay,” Julien says, simply. He turns to face Luc, grinning, and pushes his sunglasses up.

“Okay? That’s it?”

“Yeah. I mean, I want that too. So we’re cool, right?”

“Uh, yeah, I guess,” Luc says.

“Nice.” Julien finally does lean in and kiss him, and he looks so fucking happy when he pulls back. “Let’s go upstairs. My billet family’s out.”

 

Julien’s room is the same as it was a week ago, when Julien brought him back here after Game 1. Actually, it’s messier. There is shit everywhere.

“Nice of you to clean up for me,” Luc says, eyeing the pile of laundry on the floor. “Makes me feel real special.”

“You gave me like 24 hours’ notice,” Julien says, sounding wounded.

He lets go of Luc long enough to shove everything on his bed onto the floor, and then they’re making out again, which is fucking nice. There must be five or six pillows under Luc’s head alone, and the whole bed smells like Julien, and Julien is big and heavy on top of him, rocking slowly against his hip.

It goes from lazy kissing to something more intent pretty fast.

“We should—clothes,” Luc gasps out, and Julien mumbles an agreement against his mouth.

Luc has just fought his way out of his shirt—which is pretty unsexy, but Julien’s never minded before—when Julien seems to suddenly realize something.

“Um, wait, wait.”

Luc pauses, halfway out of his pants and getting kind of impatient. He didn’t come to Saint John to chat. Well actually, yeah he did, but the chatting is over and he’s hoping for some offseason so-we’re-dating-now boning, which Julien is not delivering. “What?”

Julien ducks his head, looking unusually shy as he asks, “Would you wear my jersey?”

And that’s—oh. That’s not something Luc ever thought about doing before, but it’s. A thought. A pretty hot thought, now that he’s imagining it. Great fucking visuals. He kisses Julien quickly before answering.

“Sure. But not the Dogs one.” It’s still too soon for that.

Julien smiles as he grabs the green jersey conveniently hanging over the headboard, the golden emblem of the Val-d’or Foreurs on the front. On the back is Gauthier 12 in bold white.

“You planned this out,” Luc says, halfway between accusatory and fond. He tosses his pants on the floor and pulls the jersey on, feeling the fabric oddly against his chest and back. He's used to there being layers underneath his jerseys, shirts and shoulder pads. Without them, it feels more intimate, like Julien on his skin.

“Yeah,” Julien says breathlessly, all big eyes and stunned wonder on his face, and then he shoves Luc onto his back again and kisses him, fingers bunched in the front of his jersey. “Yeah I fucking did.”

He sounds way too smug, but Luc forgets about that pretty quickly.

 

The afternoon sun on his face is nice. Luc thinks he could fall asleep like this, worn-out and a bit too warm.

“What are you doing?” he asks, opening his eyes.

Julien continues his lazy exploration of his jaw, running his lips over Luc’s mouth and chin and throat, pausing for random little kisses and bites. His beard feels different, feels more sensitive on Luc’s bare face, and it makes Luc’s stomach tighten with—with something he still doesn’t want to name yet.

“No more beard,” Julien mumbles against his skin, and then he drops a kiss to the corner of Luc’s mouth before going back to nuzzling his jaw like a cat or something.

“Shaved as soon as I got back home. Didn’t really like it that long.”

“It was nice,” Julien offers, which is way too nice of him.

Luc hums and stares out the window. There’s not really much to see, mostly just leaves and sky and some funny-looking clouds.

Julien gets bored or tired eventually, because he stops working himself up over Luc’s jaw and just curls up against him, a little sweaty and definitely too hot for this weather. He’s like a fucking furnace. It’s gonna be terrible sleeping in his bed in the summer.

Luc lets himself get caught up in the thought of Julien and summer and the future, just for a second.

“So how did you know?” he asks suddenly.

“Know what?”

“That I wanted to like, you know. Date. You knew. You planned with the jersey and everything.”

“Uh, I didn’t,” Julien says into the pillows. He turns his head, peeks at Luc with one sleepy eye. “I hoped. Also, I just wanted to see you wear my jersey while we fucked.” He cracks a smile. “And it was just as good as I imagined.”

Fucking hell. He’s full of surprises. Luc reaches over and smooths down some bits of hair that are sticking up on top of Julien’s head.

“You’re a freak,” he says, and he can’t help the smile spreading over his face.

Julien just snorts and rolls over, taking up all the room on the bed like an asshole until Luc shoves back, and then they’re wrestling for space and trying to shove each other off onto the floor.

 

The Sea Dogs look fucking thrilled to see Luc.

There are a lot of back slaps and warm welcomes, and someone gets him a red solo cup half-full of—actually, Luc isn’t sure what it’s full of.

“What the fuck is this?” he asks Jozy, since it’s Jozy’s house, and Jozy should know.

Mathieu only shrugs. “No fucking clue, man. Boothy made it. It’s good though.”

Luc takes a sip. It tastes like rubbing alcohol and bleach and very faintly like cranberries. “Jesus.”

The President’s Cup is in Boko Imama’s lap, and Luc forces himself to look at it. It’s nice that he doesn’t feel like puking when he sees it. Imama at least looks happier to see him, probably because Julien is happily shotgunning a can of beer and looking like he might start on a second.

“Pool,” he says, slamming the can down and nodding towards the back of the house, and Luc finishes his drink and follows him out.

The pool is too small for twenty-odd guys, but Julien doesn’t try to get Luc to go in.

Chabby leans over the edge, bobbing up and down with his arm floaties, and he looks up at Luc, grinning. “Duber,” he says, drawing out Luc’s name. “Heard you got here yesterday. I thought you didn’t love me and my boy Joz enough to visit.”

“You’re full of shit,” Luc says, and Chabby laughs, snorting up some water.

When he’s done coughing, he climbs out of the pool and hugs Luc so tightly that Luc thinks he might’ve separated his shoulder. He also drips all over Luc.

“Nice to see you again, really,” Chabby says, slapping his ass as he lets go.

Julien wraps his arms around both their shoulders. “Hands off the goods, Chabs.”

“Right.” Chabby gives him a sarcastic salute before jumping back in the pool.

It’s a nice party. Luc enjoys himself, even though he still finds his eyes skipping over the Cup being passed around the team. He shoots some pool, plays some pong, and hangs out with a few of the guys he played with in the Canada-Russia series.

Julien is the one who can’t keep his hands to himself, and Luc is in the middle of owning Bailey Webster at beer pong when Julien makes up some excuse and drags him down the hall and into a closet.

It’s a bit of a tight fit, but Luc has hooked up in worse places. Though whoever Jozy’s billet parents are, they could invest in more closet space.

One of them knocks over a bottle of window cleaner or something, but before Luc can even think about picking it up, Julien is reaching for his shorts, and Luc gives up trying to be a good guest.

He’s having a really good time until someone opens the door and screams.

It’s fucking Joe Veleno, Q wunderkind.

“Fuck!” he yells when he sees them. “When Jozy said get a room he meant like, a room with doors that actually _lock_. Jesus Christ I’m never going to be able to look at either of you again.”

“It’s a closet. What do you even need a closet for in the middle of a party?” Julien asks, but he lets go of Luc’s dick and pulls Luc’s shirt down to cover it, much to Luc’s disappointment. It’s probably for the best though, since Veleno looks like he’s slowly dying on the spot and would like for death to hurry up already.

“Just—Just hand me those paper towels behind PLD’s ass. Boothy needs them since someone spilled whatever it was he made.”

Julien hands the towels over.

“And get a real room!” Veleno adds before slamming the door shut, and Luc blinks as the sounds of the party are suddenly muffled.

“Sorry,” Julien mutters.

“The baby of your team just caught us hooking up. The _baby_.”

Julien shrugs, looking really unconcerned that they probably just scarred the future first overall pick. "He's 17, relax."

"He’s a baby though! Like...you hear what they say about him! He’s the youngest player on either of our teams, what the fuck. That makes him the baby and he just saw my dick.”

“He sees mine every day.”

“Yeah but there’s a difference between locker room dick and you know, action dick. Babies aren’t supposed to see that.”

Julien throws his hands up, almost hitting the light, but he’s laughing. “Stop calling him a baby!”

“That’s what he is!” Luc hisses, smiling back.

“He’s not! He’s—You know what? Let’s stop talking about JoJo.”

And with that, Julien puts his hands back on Luc’s dick, which is a pretty good distraction. God, Luc loves him.

When they stumble out of the closet, a dish towel falls off the doorknob, and Luc picks it up. Julien only shrugs when he sees.

“He’s a good kid. Bathroom’s that way.”

 

It’s only later that night, when Julien takes out his phone to check the time, that they realize it’s filled with messages from the Dogs group chat. Someone asks who was hooking up in the closet with the towel-sock on the handle. A dozen guys answer with a combination of goat emojis, tongue emojis, and peaches.

Julien looks stupidly pleased.

This fucking team. Assholes, every one of them.

 

Julien wakes early on Wednesday, and Luc finds him in the kitchen inhaling like a dozen eggs and half a garden of fruit. It’s quiet in the house, everyone else still asleep, so Luc lets himself look: at Julien’s broad shoulders, his huge fucking arms and hands and the muscles of his back and the shorts riding low on his hips.

“You didn’t save any for me, did you?” he asks.

Julien is in the middle of putting the dishes in the sink (and probably not washing them), but he pauses long enough for Luc to know that he’s surprised. “I left you a bit?” he says, spinning around and smiling.

Luc is hungry, like he always is, but Julien looks just as good as the leftover eggs in the frying pan. It’s almost hard, choosing what to go for first.

He catches the drawstring of Julien’s shorts and drags him close enough to kiss.

Julien tastes like breakfast and just the tiniest bit like his mint toothpaste, and Luc takes his time. He lets himself have this, early morning kisses, and then he pulls back, looks Julien in the eye, and says, “I can't fucking wait for you to shave.”

Julien looks insulted, touching his beard. “Dude. Don't knock the goatee.”

It’s not even a real goatee. Julien just wanted to make another goat joke, because he’s a huge dork. A huge dork that Luc loves.

“Trim it a bit before you go. You’re representing the Q, man. Don’t give us a bad rap.”

“You sound like my mom. _Trim your beard, Julien. Wear your coat, Julien_.”

Luc laughs, leaning in to kiss him again. “Don’t wear a coat. You should walk around naked everywhere.”

“I don’t think the people in Windsor would like that,” Julien says, but his voice is hoarse. His hand drifts lower and lower down Luc’s back, brushing the top of his boxers. “ _You_ though…”

“Shut up, I’m not even going to Windsor.”

It feels okay, being able to joke about it now. About not going to Windsor, and not playing for the Mem Cup. Luc thinks he’s okay with it.

Julien eventually lets him go to eat breakfast, and he’s dressed by the time Luc makes it back to his bedroom. “Gotta meet the rest of the team before we head to the airport,” he explains. “You got a ride for your flight later?”

Luc waves his phone at him. “I’ll get an Uber.”

“Text me when you get back to Rimouski.”

“Yeah. Lemme know when you touch down in Windsor.”

Julien stops packing to kiss him again, like he can’t believe Luc is real or something. Even though they’ve been hooking up for like a year and a half by this point, so kissing him really shouldn’t feel like a new, exciting thing. “I’ll send you lots of snaps, promise.”

“Good.” Luc runs his hands through Julien’s hair, which he hasn’t combed yet. “Bring it home for us, eh? Bring it back to the Q.”

The Memorial Cup hasn’t come back to the Q since the 2013 Mooseheads won it, Nathan MacKinnon and Jonathan Drouin parading it around the streets of Halifax. Bringing it to Saint John isn’t like having it in Blainville, but it’s still Quebec. Well, New Brunswick really, but the Quebec League.

“We will,” Julien says. “I’ll bring it back for you.”

It sounds like a promise.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Lotta notes. First, these are not all the boys on the WJC team, nor are they all the Sea Dog/Armada players. I had to cut out a few so it didn't get too confusing. Rip to those I wronged. (Also I forgot that Luc roomed with Dylan Strome during WJCs until I had already written Barzal as his roommate, rip.)
> 
> Second, PLD played the Q finals with a separated shoulder, and I'd already written half of this before I found out, so as much as I'd love to yell at him for that via fic, maybe next time.
> 
> Timeline:
> 
> -PL and Julien were both selected in the 2016 Draft: PL to CBJ at 3rd overall, Julien to the Canes at 21st overall  
> -Played together on Team QMJHL in the Canada-Russia series in November 2016  
> -Played together on Team Canada during the 2017 WJC, winning silver  
> -PL, previously of the Cape Breton Screaming Eagles, was traded to the Blainville-Boisbriand Armada  
> -Julien, previously of the Val-d'Or Foreurs, was traded to the Saint John Sea Dogs  
> -The Armada and Sea Dogs met in the QMJHL Finals. Dogs won and will play for the Memorial Cup, hosted in Windsor


End file.
